Published 12:00 am, Thursday, April 3, 2014

She wants funds donated to the community to be used to bolster mental health.

The thought of using any of the donations to tear down, or in any way mark the Yogananda Street home where Lanza lived with his mother, Nancy, before he murdered her and 26 people inside the school, would be horrifying, said the woman. She asked not to be identified because the Lanza home is a sensitive topic in the neighborhood.

"Do you really want a chronic reminder in your neighborhood?" she asked. "Here is where a murderer lived?"

Amid 1,600 responses to an online survey conducted by the Newtown-Sandy Hook Community Foundation about how to best distribute some $4.5 million, about 25 people suggested some of the money be spent to demolish the Lanza house and transform the property into a park or nature preserve. Foundation officials said they believed most of those respondents, who wrote the suggestion under the "other" comments section of the survey, lived in the same development as the Lanzas.

The millions of dollars donated to Newtown in the wake of the shooting should "not buy a Band-Aid to cover something ugly," the woman said.

Neighbors closest to the property, which is valued around $500,000, have worked with estate lawyers and State Police to ensure the home does not become blighted, residents and officials said Wednesday. The Christmas decorations that were on the front door long after the holiday season have now been removed, and the property, set back from the street on a hillside, is maintained.

Newtown Selectman Will Rodgers, a local lawyer who is an ex-officio member of the foundation's board of directors, said he can appreciate the mix of sentiments some residents have expressed -- ignoring the Lanza home, calling for it to be razed, or just wishing it would be resold to young family so it could be a happy place rather than a source of sorrow.

And he was not displeased the survey offered a vehicle for those views to be expressed.

As a lawyer, though, Rodgers said using donated funds would not be appropriate. In time, if the estate is unable to sell the home, there might be a private move to do something with the property. But that could take years.

"This is a legal can of worms," Rodgers said.

Foundation Executive Director Jennifer Barahona said there were 369 comments written into the "other" comments section of the survey, and most had to do with mental health issues. She knew the couple dozen responses about the Lanza home might trigger some negative reactions, but included them in the report released Monday for transparency's sake.

"We wanted to honor everybody's thoughts, but that's a very emotionally charged topic," Barahona said. "More to the point, it's in probate and we assume there will be litigation against the estate, and so if anything can be done about that house, it will probably not be for several years."

The foundation's goal is to address "more global, community-wide issues because there are such a finite amount of resources," she said.

"We want to look at where money can best be spent to serve the greatest number of people, and that is shaking out to be the mental health area with out-of-pocket expenses and wellness activities," Barahona said.

The foundation is working to create a strategy that will stretch current funds and possibly generate future grants so that it can do the most good over time, Barahona said. The mental health needs of the Sandy Hook student and staff community, first responders and others will not be a quick fix; for some it will be a lifelong healing process, she said.

"We just have to be gentle with one another. You just don't know what someone has gone through," Barahona said. "Communication is big ... We have to be prepared to think strategically in other ways to bring resources into the community."